Mobile carriers have been slow to jump on the 5G bandwagon - your smartphone usually relies on 4G or LTE for old-fashioned calls.

Nonetheless, T-Mobile is moving forward by launching its commercial Voice over 5G service today in limited areas of Portland and Salt Lake City. For now, the technology will only be available to Samsung Galaxy S21 5G customers.

T-Mobile says it will continue to roll out the feature to other areas and to different brands of 5G phones later this year, despite the small sample size. The Samsung Galaxy S22 will be supported later this year.

Although the Samsung Galaxy S21 with 5G has HD Voice+, some customers have pointed out that it cannot be used over 5G. The wait for 5G voice calls will likely be even longer for customers who do not use T-Mobile.

FierceWireless reported that AT&T and Verizon have not prioritized 5G voice calls yet. 'We plan to implement VoNR once we have enhanced our HD Voice capabilities,' a spokesperson for AT&T told Fierce.

There is unlikely to be a drastic difference between the sound quality of voice calls over 5G and those on LTE.

The T-Mobile company indicates that callers will notice “slightly faster call set-up times,” or a shorter time between dialing a number and hearing the phone ring.

The use of 5G in immersive audio and conference calls is likely to be the first significant advancement in voice technology to follow as more carriers build standalone 5G networks.